


Touched With Fire

by LunaRowena



Category: Pillars of Eternity
Genre: Angst, Disordered Eating, Gen, Minor Self Harm, Sleep Deprivation, discussion of suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-31
Updated: 2020-03-31
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:41:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23404672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaRowena/pseuds/LunaRowena
Summary: What did it matter? Everyone should try not sleeping. There were so many more hours in the day.
Comments: 8
Kudos: 18





	Touched With Fire

**Author's Note:**

> I am a bipolar person who projects more onto my Watchers than they would probably like.

Talia hadn’t eaten in two days. Theoretically, she should be hungry. She tried to force herself to eat a sandwich over lunch and gagged at the texture in her mouth. It didn’t matter. Sleep, food, what did it matter?

Matter?

matter

MATTER

_No sleep for the Watcher_

hungry

no

What did it matter? Everyone should try not sleeping. There were so many more hours in the day.

day

day

day

So she was baking a cake at two am.

It was a hot night, regardless, and the oven fire in the Brighthollow kitchen made it hotter. Talia had propped open the window, hoping for a breeze to cut the sticky air.

Did she know how to bake?

Of

course

she

knew

how

to

Bake.

_bake_

_flour sugar eggs salt_

Flour _flour_ flour

(was it still a word?)

Flour everywhere. On her. On the counter. On the floor. She was clumsy, careless. 

Spilled flour.

too

much

NOISE

She leaned on the counter. Covered in flour. She was already covered in flour, what did it matter? It was all a mess.

_help me_

She smoothed down the coating of flour on the counter. When she was young, back home in Aedyr, she would draw pictures in the sand at the beach. Talia let her fingers trace out an egg. Wings. The symbol of Hylea.

_gods help me_

Tracing over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over. And over.

not... ending…

Talia ripped her hand away from its designs, scattering more flour in the process. Grabbing her other wrist, she dug her nails into her skin. Grounding. Feeling. Feeling something on the outside. Not deep enough to draw blood. Too many questions tomorrow…

_HELP ME_

A thud at the door.

Talia grabbed a wooden spoon and spun around, pointing it at the intruder.

Durance stared at her.

She stared back.

He scratched his nose. “Watcher.”

“Durance.” She lowered the spoon. “You’re up late.”

“It appears I’m not the only one.” His eyes ran over the scene in the kitchen. Processing. Judging.

“I don’t sleep. Not anymore.”

“So you throw flour around instead? Cover yourself, pretending to be one of the ghosts you see?”

“I’m baking,” Talia snapped.

“You’re cracking.” It was not a question. It was a statement of fact.

Talia clenched her teeth and drew in a large breath to stop herself from… screaming? Crying?

_What did it matter?_

_matter?_

“What if I am?”

“Then the next Watcher will come. Kill you. Take your house. Re-do your kitchen.” He pointed his staff around at her messy cupboards and countertops. “And you will have failed.” He brought the staff back to the floor with a thud.

_help_

_me_

_NOISE_

She looked at Durance. “Can you promise me, if… if I ever get too far gone, you’ll put me down?”

He gave a short laugh. “Like a bitch? No, I think not.”

“You’re the only one who possibly would.”

“And that is why you fail, Watcher. If you’re so sick of this life, take it yourself. I will not give you the easy way out.”

Talia gripped the wooden spoon tightly, heat rushing to her cheeks. “You are a horrible man.”

“Good!” He leaned forward on his staff, a glint in his eye. “Hold onto that anger. Kindle the fire inside you. Let it drive you. Say to the world, ‘you owe me.’ That’s what makes us alive.”

“I’m not you or your goddess. I don’t want to live my life for anger.” She tried to hold the emotion down, to not let him bait her but, gods, it was so hard.

“Sometimes we must live our lives for whatever we can, whatever little thing we can grasp as we scream into the face of the uncaring world, ‘I am here.’” Durance struck his staff on the floor. “This world is full of trials, Watcher. You will always, always fail if you turn your back on them.”

“I don’t know that I’m strong enough,” Talia whispered, wiping a tear from her eye. Flour smeared across her cheek.

Durance looked on with dispassion. “We are as strong as we need to be. If not, we are lost to the flame and are purified by it.”

“Would it be quiet?” she asked, softly.

“No,” he chuckled. “Magran does nothing quietly.”

She gripped the edge of the counter to keep from falling over. “I don’t want purification. I don’t want struggle. I’m tired of fighting with everything. I just want silence.”

His eyes bored into her. “When was the last time you slept?”

Her tongue felt heavy in her mouth. “I don’t know. I can’t remember.”

He sighed. “I know of some herbs. They will put you to sleep. What your mind does then is its own fault, but you will sleep.”

_we need to stop_

“Why would you help me? After everything you just said?”

He dug around in his pockets and slapped something down on the counter. “Because you haven’t lost yet.”

As Durance lumbered out of the room, Talia sank to the floor.

She cried.


End file.
